


TO DO LIST

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Series: Five hundred hours [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Danny's pancakes, F/M, Gen, POV Mary Ann McGarrett, POV Quinn Liu, POV Tani Rey, Slice of Life, Team as Family, and steve and danny are just being steve and danny, mary is thinking about the past, tani and junior are tentatively thinking about the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24829261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “You’re moving out?” she asks, and what she can’t really avoid is the teasing tone in her voice. “Already? Your temporary stay at McGarrett’s has only lasted three years so far.”Junior nods. “I am, because Steve is moving. Him and Danny.”Or: Steve is a very organized man. Danny is looking for crayons. Their friends and family love them anyway.
Relationships: Five-0 Team - Relationship, Junior Reigns/Tani Rey, Mary Ann McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams, Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Five hundred hours [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683592
Comments: 11
Kudos: 176





	TO DO LIST

**Author's Note:**

> So! I kind of maybe accidentally made plans for a whole bunch of sequels in this series and started writing three of them. This one was supposed to be a quick little interlude to provide some ohana context that wouldn’t fit naturally into the next actual fic, but then it grew and now it’s very nearly three separate full length (by my standards, anyway) fics stitched together, but the stitching was a fun pattern, so I kept it.
> 
> You could read this as a stand alone without having read the rest of the series, if you wanted! That would probably be very doable.
> 
> Lastly it might be worth mentioning that while so far (including this entry) this series has been ambiguous about the nature of Steve and Danny’s relationship, that will change in the next part, if all goes according to plan, and things will probably start to creep in the direction of actual romance. Of course I’ll be tagging appropriately, but this is your prior warning if you prefer the & between Steve and Danny’s names.

###### [✔] Talk to Junior

Tani, while not a morning person, would say that recently she’s grown to appreciate mornings more. On this particular one, she wakes up, slips into one of the handful of way oversized Navy shirts that live in her closet these days, and follows her nose to the kitchen, where Junior is just turning off the stove. They’re thankfully past the stage where breakfast triggers her fight or flight response, so she’s able to fully appreciate the wonders of having a boyfriend that makes food for her in her own kitchen while cutting a very, very handsome figure in his boxers and another of his Navy shirts. It fits just right when he wears it.

Junior gets a pleased flush when the first thing she does is sneak her arms around his waist and kiss his cheek. He turns his head for a real kiss and it almost leads them somewhere else – back from whence she just came, to be exact – but it really does smell very good, and it would be a shame to let all of Junior’s efforts go to waste. 

“Are those Danny’s pancakes?” she asks, after he’s pulled out a chair for her. He’s now serving her the food. One day, she’ll have to send a thank you note to his mom for raising a man this way.

“Yeah.” Junior grins when he sits down across from her at her tiny table with his own plate. Their bare feet bump and stay together. “I washed the Camaro for two months to get it.”

Tani already has her mouth full, so she has to be careful not to spit it out when that makes her laugh. She chews, swallows with a little aid from the water glass that’s already on the table in front of her and that Junior helpfully hands her, and then she can finally talk. “Well, it was worth it. These are good enough they should go for three months of car washes.”

He pulls a face like he’s worried about having to provide backpay. “Please don’t tell Danny that.”

“Don’t worry.” She mimes locking her mouth and throwing away the key. She already knows she’s going to break that promise in a second when she opens her mouth for another bite of those pancakes, but it’s the thought that counts. “I won’t give him any ideas.” 

Junior grins at her again for a moment, and then he seems to snap out of it and looks down at his untouched plate and back up at her. “Speaking of ideas,” he says, in a very weak but genuine attempt at a smooth segue. “I have a question for you.” 

It’s probably not if she has the recipe to Danny’s pancakes, and it’s also probably not “don’t you think we should see other people?” because she trusts Junior enough that she’s stopped automatically expecting him to let her down, but other than that, she draws a blank. She twirls her fork at him. “Shoot.”

He pushes his plate a little further towards the middle of the table so he can lean in and fold his arms right in front of him. This looks serious. “I’ve been looking at apartment listings and I’d like your help finding my own place.”

Again, he says it so very genuinely, and it’s touching and sweet, but it also almost makes her laugh in relief. She swallows that impulse and puts her fork down to give him the attention he deserves. “You’re moving out?” she asks, and what she can’t really avoid is the teasing tone in her voice. “Already? Your temporary stay at McGarrett’s has only lasted three years so far.”

Junior nods. “I am, because Steve is moving. Him and Danny.”

“And they kicked you out?” Tani can’t decide if that doesn’t sound like them at all, because they basically seem to have adopted Junior, or if it’s peak Steve-and-Danny, because they’re so good at getting wrapped up in each other that they sometimes seem to forget the rest of the world exists.

“No,” Junior says, which is a relief, because it means Tani doesn’t have to be mad at her bosses, “they sat me down together at the breakfast table yesterday. Danny had bought croissants and Steve had made me eggs. I thought they were going to tell me someone was dying.” Well, now she knows what inspired the pancakes. Maybe she should be sending Steve and Danny that thank you note.

She picks up her fork again. She’s hungry, the pancakes are amazing, and if he’s joking, she figures she can eat. “Ah, yes, the classic ‘I have a brain tumor, do you want another French pastry?’”

Junior shakes his head a little, as if in disbelief. “They just told me they were going to get serious about buying a house together and asked me if I wanted to come.”

“And you said no?”

“I thought it might be time to spread my wings.” 

She’s suspected for a while now that he was sticking around at Steve’s mostly because of Steve. Junior can deny that he was ever worried all he wants, but he was hesitant to let Steve go back to living in that house alone, at the very least. Then there was the whole mess of the past year, and suddenly Danny was weirdly the one Junior was keeping an eye on for a while – out of loyalty to Steve, maybe, but definitely also for Danny – and now, in a surprise twist, it looks like neither of those guys is ever going to end up lonely again. Junior has been released from the silent task he’s set himself.

“Of course I’ll make the final decisions,” he goes on, verging on becoming rambly, “but I’d like to know what you think. I, you know- I value your opinion. And I hope you’ll be spending a lot of time there, so it only makes sense that you’d get a say.”

“I’d like that,” she assures him, just to save him from himself and to give her something else to do than try not to smile at her pancakes. 

The message he’s sending is loud but also pretty wonderful. He’s not telling her he expects her to move in with her right now, but he’s also not _not_ thinking about it as a potential future event, and to someone as scared of both intimacy and getting left behind as she is, that strikes a balance that’s invaluable for the moment. 

In a crazy turn of events, he even seems more anxious about this than she is. She reaches across the table to his arm, which is still where his pancakes should be. His skin is warm and soft, just like he makes her feel. “You’re a good man, Junior Reigns.”

He looks at her hand, and then up at her face, and the joyful relief in his eyes almost chokes her with affection. He smiles. “Dang it,” he says. “And I tried so hard to be bad.” 

This time, she really does spit out some of her pancake laughing. He doesn’t even retract his offer to let her tag along for the apartment hunting. Truly, a good man.

*

###### [✔] Invite Mary to visit

“Oh,” Danny says, when he walks in on Mary. “Sorry.” He raises a hand and waves it like he’s trying to erase his interruption of her window gazing. He’s already walking backwards. “Carry on, don’t mind me.”

“It’s fine,” Mary says, before he can slip away completely. “You don’t have to go.” It stops him in his tracks and gets him to come forward again after a moment, for which she’s glad. She could use the company. Steve is running errands and she’s been wandering aimlessly about the house for half an hour. Saying goodbye is not really harder than she expected, but it’s for sure a lot weirder.

Danny is holding a measuring tape and shakes it to draw attention to it before he aimlessly throws it on the foot of the bed. “I was bored and thought I’d get a head start by taking some numbers on the furniture in here. What’s your afternoon like?”

There’s not that much in the room: the bed, one nightstand, a wardrobe and the small desk in the corner. She remembers sitting at it and wanting to dump her maths homework out the window, but the desk was still pushed against the opposite wall back then, way back when there were two beds crammed in here and only a large bookcase giving her the illusion of having her own room. The bookcase is gone now, and soon so will be the other stuff. “Are you going to sell it?” she asks.

“If you want anything-”

She shakes her head, stopping him before he can get the offer out fully. Steve already assured her that anything she wants that isn’t something he bought new over the last decade is hers. All she has to do is say the word, but where would she put any of it? Her small two-bedroom apartment in LA is full enough as it is. “I was just wondering.”

“Yeah, we might,” Danny says, still careful. “We might take some of it with us, depending on where we end up and if anything fits. What’s left over is probably going to Goodwill.”

“That’s nice,” she says, and she finds that she means it. She’s a little surprised by that, because the cocktail of emotions that keep hitting her right in the chest with every corner she turns in this place is pretty volatile. 

But it’s a fair deal. After dad died, she got what was left of the money, Steve got most of the house, and he bought her out for the rest of it years ago at her own request. It’s his to sell, and she’s fine with that. She got her share, and she used it for a much needed holiday, a new couch, and to open a savings account for Joan’s future. It was money well spent, and definitely much better than it would have been if she had kept it invested in this house she never wants to live in again that she sees at most once or twice a year, just for nostalgia’s sake. It’s not even always the fun kind of nostalgia.

There’s still a tiny dent on the inside of the bathroom door from when she kicked it after locking herself in there because mom had just died and now dad wanted to send her to the mainland, and all Steve seemed to have to say about it was that they should just do as dad said because dad always knew what he was doing.

Funny how that turned out.

She takes a deep breath and snaps out of it. Danny’s still standing next to her, just waiting, watching. “You okay?” he asks.

She’s not really sure. “He offered the house to me,” she says.

Danny nods. “Yeah, I know.”

Mary is shamefully glad about that for a moment, because if Danny hadn’t already been aware, she could have made things awkward on accident. Apparently Steve communicated at least this much. She looks at Danny and is as always both a little surprised and not that he’s the one that managed to get Steve actually talking. “He said I wouldn’t even have to pay him rent. That would’ve made things a lot more difficult for you two, wouldn’t it?”

“A little,” Danny says, shrugging, like missing out on the profits from selling off an entire house wouldn’t cut their available budget at the very least in half. “It would have been worth it to have you and Joan close.”

For some reason, that’s it. That’s what finally makes her tear up. She manages with fast blinking for a few seconds, but then her vision really gets swimmy and she has to swipe at her eyes. She doesn’t really realize that she’s crying until she hears the pitch of her own voice when she tries to talk. “I still love this place, so much. Not even the house, but- This island, and Steve, and the ocean. Ohana.” Great, now both her face and her hands are wet. Damn summer dresses and their lack of convenient sweater-like sleeves. “But I have a life in LA now, and I love that too.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling. Like being torn in two.” Danny steps closer and seems to have quietly magicked up a tissue box from somewhere. She takes two and starts mopping up the evidence of her overflowing nostalgia.

“New Jersey?”

He nods and puts the box on the window sill. He leans against it too, turned her way but mostly watching the front yard through the glass. “My mom and dad and sisters still live there and I miss the city like crazy. Just not nearly crazy enough to leave this place or the family I built here. That’d be even worse.” He gives her a rueful smile and taps the window with a knuckle. “This is home now, whether I like it or not.”

Mary laughs wetly, but at least it finally stops her sniffling. “Oh, I bet Steve loves that.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Makes him grin like a madman every time. Not that there’s much of a trigger needed for that, mind you.”

She knows he’s trying to imply Steve is always a little crazy, but it just sounds like he’s always grinning these days. It makes her smile, too. She balls up the tissue, stuffs it in her bra for lack of a better holding place, and then catches Danny watching her boobs in confusion.

His eyes snap up after a split second. “I’m sorry,” he blurts, throwing up his hands as if he expects all McGarretts to have stashes of hidden weapons on their body at all times, even Mary. “I didn’t mean to be inappropriate, it’s just that I’ve seen women hide IDs and phones in their bras and I think one time Kono had a pocket knife in there when she went undercover, but I’ve never seen it used as a holding place for trash.”

“Well, there’s nowhere else to put it in this room and this doesn’t have any pockets.” She plucks the bottom of her dress to spread it out a little.

“Right. Okay.” Danny reaches into the deep, deep pockets of his men’s shorts and withdraws his phone. He starts typing something on it with one finger. “That’s going on the list.”

“What list?”

“The list of things I’ll need to force Steve to consider while we’re decorating whatever new place we end up in. There: waste basket in every room for our pocketless friends.”

She shakes her head, but he’s so busy typing he doesn’t see it. It’s okay; it gives her a chance to dry the last corners of her eyes and acknowledge that while that was a little embarrassing, at least she’s doing miles better now. The crying released enough of the pressure that she doesn’t feel like an emotional bomb about to go off anymore.

Her attention catches on the measuring tape on the bed and she moves to pick it up. Here’s something she could do to say goodbye. “Hey, do you have your furniture notes on your phone, too? Want some help taking measurements?”

Danny looks up, and then he smiles. “Yeah, in a shared Google Drive file with Steve, because he’s an asshole and definitely going to doublecheck. Where do you want to start?”

She decides on the desk. If there’s anything that needs to go, it’s the thing that fooled her into feeling nostalgic over hating her maths homework.

*

###### [ ] Danny

It’s late afternoon, Tani and Junior bid their goodbyes around four to go look at an apartment, Lou wasn’t working at all today and there was no case, so it’s been a long, slow eight hours filled with supply checks and paperwork. By now the day is well and truly over, but Quinn got caught up in Steve and Lincoln’s trading of Academy stories. She’s got a few of her own to contribute. She did see Danny pass behind Steve to get from his office to Steve’s a minute ago, but she didn’t think anything of it and Lincoln was talking, so she just let it be.

Maybe she should have expected Lincoln’s story to be interrupted the moment she spotted Danny at all. Danny bursts out of Steve’s office waving what looks like a tiny square of bright blue paper, and he doesn’t even say anything at first, but his body language yells so loudly Lincoln falls instantly quiet in bafflement anyway. Steve sees both of them looking at something behind his back and turns, and then he breaks the silence, or tries to, at least. “Hey, is that the Post-it that was on my-”

“I found _this_ -” Danny importantly waves the thing that, as it turns out, looked like a square of blue paper because it _was_ in fact a square of blue paper. “-stuck to the monitor in your office.”

It’s Steve’s turn to interrupt. “Why were you in my office?”

“Looking for crayons,” Danny says, like that should be obvious and is of no importance, and he’s a little annoyed that Steve would try to derail the conversation like that. Whatever the conversation might be. Quinn is not entirely sure yet.

“Danny.” Steve’s tone implies he’s about to say something he’s had to say before. “I am a grown man. I use pens and pencils, and you’re free to borrow one if you like, but the crayons joke was old years ago when you first used it.”

“Charlie’s crayons,” Danny shoots back. “Last time he was here, did he forget them in your office?”

Steve’s long-suffering attitude evaporates and leaves only a trace of sheepishness. “Oh. Yeah. Bottom drawer in my desk.”

“Thank you,” Danny says, and for one second, it seems like they’ve talked their way into being nice and all is well. Then Danny holds the Post-it up again. “Now, what’s this?”

“It’s a to do list,” Steve says.

“I can see that.” With no prior warning, Danny turns to Quinn and thrusts the note at her. She doesn’t really want to get involved, but she is enjoying the theatrics, so she takes it anyway. The way those two act is like a form of well-oiled improv comedy for which the price of admission is joining Five-0, which, all things considered, is something she would have done regardless. “Quinn, would you do me a favor and read it for us, please?”

“Sure.” It barely even has more than ten words on it, so it’s not like it’s a big ask. “It says _TO DO LIST_ in all caps at the top.”

“Because that’s what it is,” Steve murmurs. Danny shushes him, but before Steve shuts up he still worms in a petulant, “It’s clearly labeled, Danny.”

Quinn’s not really on anyone’s side here, so she waits to make sure he’s done talking before she continues. “Then under that, it says _talk to Junior_ and _invite Mary to visit_. Both have little hand drawn boxes in front of them that have been ticked off.”

“Very sharp squares,” Lincoln says, who’s been reading over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” Steve says, with emphasis, like it’s a novelty to be appreciated for his skill. Danny rolls his eyes.

“There’s one more item on the list. There’s another very angular little box in front of it but no checkmark. It just says _Danny_ , and nothing else.”

“Yes, thank you,” Danny says, and takes the note back from her. “So?” he asks Steve, pushing the paper in his face for a change. “What does this mean? Why am I on your to do list? What hellish thing do you have in store for me?”

“I need to talk to you,” Steve says, which makes sense to Quinn. 

Apparently not Danny, though. Danny shakes the paper and waves a hand between him and Steve, making a big sarcastic hullabaloo over the whole thing. “Oh, so you’re not gonna _do_ me, then?”

Steve rolls his eyes, in a fashion just dramatic enough that it’s not only a dismissal but also a perfect match for Danny’s fuss. “Not for a checkmark, no. Look, we’re going to have to sit down and talk about what we want in a house.”

Danny lowers the note. “Well, that should be easy enough. We talk every day. I don’t know why you had to write that down.”

“Do you remember anything at all from the restaurant?” 

Quinn fully expects Danny to start arguing again, because as they’ve just proven once and for all, that’s what they do, even when there’s not really anything that needs to be argued over. Instead, Danny just inclines his head for a moment and then thrusts the by now sufficiently aired out note in Steve’s direction in an apparent sign that he’ll concede the point. “Alright, so let’s block off the weekend for it. Even if we start trying to kill each other, there’ll be enough time to cool down and try again.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Steve says, which really makes Quinn want to ask some more questions about that mythical restaurant. She’s heard scattered stories here and there, but it’s mostly the outlines of what seemed like a truly disastrous and ulcer-inducing retirement plan. Comparably, buying a house together would have to be like strolling through a fresh spring meadow, even for them.

Lincoln, who’s been standing and watching the show right next to her, leans in. He keeps enough distance to be respectful, but comes close enough that he can make sure she’s the only one who hears him. “Are they always like this?”

She watches them – Steve and Danny, obviously, because there’s nobody else he could mean – and wonders how the hell to answer that based on her own year of experience and the stories she’s been told of shared livers and Columbian prisons and Valentine’s double dates. “Worse,” is what she decides on.

“Huh,” Lincoln says, a little worried and at the same time a little impressed against his own better judgment, and she remembers that feeling well. It took her a while to realize that even when Steve and Danny seem legitimately mad, the only thing that motivates their yelling is how much they care.

Lincoln will learn soon enough. Once you spend a little time with them, it’s impossible to miss, really.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Comments are always welcome, and I hope you’re all okay and you manage to check the things you need to do off your list. ❤
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


End file.
